Tag: cats

I’ve put together an alternative gift guide with my brother in mind. He is a cat loving, guitar playing, tea addict which makes buying gifts quite fun! Lots of us know a cat lover, a guitar player or a tea addict too so hopefully this little list of alternative gifts will be handy.

Alternative Gift Guide

Both my brother and I have used Mind (a mental health charity) over the years to help us with depression. I discovered some fantastic clothing from In Music We Trust which has some great designs and 50% of profits go to Mind. Alex loves his music and I know he will love this Vintage Tee (£12). IMWT have some awesome beanies (I want one!), vests, hoodies, caps and more.

Being a music lover Alex is forever after memory sticks to store music on. He needs them for coding too which is his latest hobby. Check out this awesome Etch’d 32GB USB stick for £17. You can have any design you want on etched on any of the products at Etch’d. I love how Alex’s name looks and I know he will love it too. There are 3 wood options to pick from – Maple, Rosewood and Dark Walnut. I love the Maple and can’t wait to see what Alex thinks!

Every tea addict needs a good mug and all cat lovers will love this one from Tesco for £2/3? I grabbed it whilst we were shopping and of course can’t find the receipt to check.. doh!

Of course if you have a mug you need a coaster and this festive one is adorable! As the cat looks very similar to Mia, Alex’s cat I think he will find this coaster quite cute.

Scope (a disability charity) also have some fab cat gifts in store too, products vary store to store but worth checking if you are shopping for a cat lover too!

A Cat Treat too!

Being a cat lover I couldn’t leave my brothers cat out and I love these fab cat treat cards from Wilko for £2. They have a great selection of pet gifts from treats to toys and all at a very reasonable price.

Of course when you buy presents you need to find some awesome gift wrap to go with it! I love the Personalised gift wrap from Pretty Gifted, you can add any text and design you like the from the available options. I thought since I was wrapping Alex and Mia’s presents and putting them in the same bag it only made sense to add ‘Merry Christmas Alex & Mia’ with Christmas trees.

What do you think of my alternative gift guide? Do you know a cat loving, guitar playing tea addict too?

Some of my readers (especially those that follow my Instagram) will know we have 2 cats, Batgirl & Freyr. Since getting them 2 years ago for Eva’s 4th birthday they have been rather fussy cats, perhaps it’s the Bengal in them but they really are quite particular.

When it comes to food they know what they do and don’t like and can sniff out a change of ingredient instantly and will refuse to eat it if it’s not something they like so when Amy from the Petshop.co.uk offered us some products to review I couldn’t wait to find out what their reactions would be!

When the parcel arrived Batgirl was instantly sniffing around to see what was inside.

We received:

Symply Cat Turkey Dry Food – 1.5kg

Dreamies Chicken Cat Treats 60g

Almo Nature Jelly Chicken Cat Pouch – 70g

Almo Nature Jelly Tuna& Sole Cat pouch – 70g

Almo Nature Classic Chicken & Whitebait Cat Pouch – 55g

Having only ever heard of Dreamies before I was even more interested to see how Batgirl & Freyr got on with the samples. The Almo Nature pouches are very different to the Felix pouches they usually eat so I was keen to see how they got on with them.

Both cat’s love their biscuits and currently eat Wagg or Brekkies so I looked up the Symply Cat Turkey Dry Food and they sounded quite impressive although slightly pricey compared to what we pay.

Symply recipes contain only the finest natural ingredients for the balanced and complete diet your pet needs to stay in top condition. All Symply products are free of artificial colourings, flavourings and preservatives. Formulated with wholesome ingredients and natural antioxidants rich in vitamins to enhance the immune system.

Surprisingly although both cats were interested in the Symply Cat Turkey dry food, to begin with after a day or so they began to eat fewer biscuits across the day than they usually do and began leaving over half, I wasn’t sure if this is because they are more filling or they aren’t keen. The biscuits are a lot smaller than what they normally have and don’t seem to be as crunchy either. We decided to try them back on their normal biscuits for a day and they demolished them all but then refused the Symply biscuits again so I’m guessing they weren’t too keen.

When it came to the pouches we decided to let them have a 70g pouch each for dinner and the smaller pouch split between them for breakfast.

Freyr had the Almo Nature Jelly Chicken cat pouch and Batgirl had the Almo Nature Jelly Tuna & sole pouch. When I opened them up instead of chunks of meat which we usually see the meat was shredded and the jelly seemed a lot thinner than the Felix pouches. Both cats seemed a little confused when we first put their bowls down but tried a little bit. Batgirl had a few mouthfuls but seemed more interested in what was in Freyrs bowl whilst Freyr seemed to be happy with her’s. Unfortunately, Batgirl decided to scare Freyr away from her bowl in an attempt to try it herself which meant Freyr stayed away from her bowl for quite a while but she did finish it off slowly across the night whereas Batgirls bowl stayed untouched.

When we gave them the Almo Classic Chicken & Whitebait Cat Pouch Batgirl quickly demolished her bowl but Freyr had a taste and refused to eat the rest. I don’t think Freyr like the Juice the meat was in as she isn’t keen on gravy either and prefers meat in jelly.

The Dreamies Chicken Cat Treats, however, they couldn’t get enough of! They scoffed them down so fast and instantly wanted more when we put the packet away. We have previously bought them other varieties of Dreamies and both cats absolutely love everything they have tried so far and always want more.

It was really interesting trying these products out and seeing how they both reacted a little differently with the pouches yet both seemed to feel the same about the biscuits and both most definitely loved the Dreamies without a doubt!

I thought a Christmas-New year catch up was needed. Over the last week or so I’ve struggled to stay focused enough to write a full post with all the excitement that’s been going on. At last I have managed to find some time to sit down and write.

Christmas

December is usually an extremely hectic month and I struggle massively with my anxiety and depression but this year has been a lot easier for several reasons.

One being I had my pain management appointment on december 14th and my consultant actually listened and has booked me in for steroid injections, physiotherapy again but much slower and mentioned looking into a spinal cord stimulator.

Relief

It’s honestly a HUGE relief, knowing someone is finally taking me seriously. I may have a chance of getting on top of this pain. Admittedly I am struggling with slowing down more but luckily I’ve had a fairly good few weeks and been able to cope and do a bit more than usual.

Christmas

The Christmas period itself has been so much calmer than normal. It has been lovely, I’ve managed to spend time having fun with the girls a bit more. We even managed to destroy a gingerbread house!

A Party

We also attended a minnie mouse themed birthday party for my friends 1 year old. It was lovely although my social anxiety apparently showed and it was rather loudly pointed out that I was sitting alone being ‘unsociable’. Still I managed to talk more than normal considering I barely knew anyone and it was just myself and the girls!

We totally kept the minnie ears!

Surprise Bedroom Makeover

The Mr & I planned a surprise bedroom make over on christmas eve. The Mr set it all up with the help of a friend whilst I took the girls out for a day of shopping, spending their christmas money & visiting father christmas with my brother.

Spending christmas eve with my brother was a huge highlight for me. Unfortunately we havent spent as many christmas’ with each other as we should have.

This photo is one I’ll treasure, our present to my brother was this photo in a christmas tree snow globe. The globe was Eva’s idea as his flat is too small for a christmas tree. His cat would destroy a tree, so she thought it could be his christmas tree which reminds him of all of us and our fun day out.

Christmas Day

Christmas day itself was a nice quiet family day just the 6 of us.. Cat’s included.. Because the girls had new beds the cats needed one too along with some new toys!

Boxing day we had a flat full of people where a lot of Rum & Jaeger was drunk. I rarely drink so it was quite nice having a chance to let my hair down a bit surrounded by people I’m comfortable with.

Coping Better

Boxing day is usually a day where depression sets in badly. Thankfully with friends around, being kept busy I didn’t have too much time to dwell on the past.

I still had the same flashbacks & memories of my miscarriage 7 years ago & going past the hospital in the car made me feel ill. I held my keepsakes tight and managed to calm myself and go back to enjoying our christmas celebrations. We picked up my brother for an evening of drinking and celebrating how far we have both come.

Rum may have helped a little but I honestly think looking over the last few weeks that having the people around us that we have has helped make things run a bit smoother making christmas much more enjoyable.

Family & Friends

Spending time with everyone, laughing joking having fun has been amazing. The girls were spoilt and had a magical christmas, my ears are still ringing from Eva’s squealing! It’s definately been our best christmas yet and we plan to have a few people over again for new years eve to celebrate too. I’ve had a lot of fun Taking silly selfies with the girls too, you may have seen some on twitter or instagram 🙂

We are stocked up on crafts & things to do thanks to father christmas! Even when I’m not able to do much, the girls can still come and sit on the sofa with me. We can do something to keep them busy which I’m hoping make’s me feel a bit better about not being able to do more. I miss things like giving them piggy back rides & racing Eva to the top of the spiderman climbing frame and spending hours at the park and struggle because I am in too much pain.

Feeling Positive

Overall things have been good lately and seem to be looking up. The blog has really kicked off quite quickly! I am still over the moon I had my first PR opportunity thanks to BakerDays on the new blog so soon. I’ve already got talking to a few lovely bloggers & look forward to meeting more.

Although I’ve been busy & haven’t blogged much lately I have enjoyed getting back into blogging this year. I’m looking forward to continuing in 2016 and connecting with other bloggers too. Especially as it really cheers me up getting a new comments or like or follow. I dont go out much and I’m stupidly shy for such a crazy person, so it’s nice to socialise a little. F

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